FE2O3 Media Library and School of Theater | Marcelo Leandro

The project was created in response to two pressing needs for the culture of the city, on the one hand a provincial public media library, which has all the society’s digital and analog files in one place; and secondly, a communal theater school, because of the proximity to The Bicentennial Theatre (currently under construction).

The main challenge was to link two very different functions in the same field, for this reason we decided to place them in separate buildings connected by a semi-public pedestrian axis passing through the first floor. Also we added a connecting function: an amphitheater for outdoor events: for this, the media center building in its southern face has a stage and a giant LED screen for transforming the site into an open theater and cinema; in order to this, the school’s terrace became in a tiered.

The complex is part of an urban cultural recreational axis of the city of San Juan, therefore, the outdoor spaces surrounding the buildings have a treatment that accompany the pedestrian in his path, integrating to that axis. Moreover, to improve an environment adaptation, there were used similar materials to the surrounding buildings such as travertine marble (locally produced material) and iron oxide buildings in facades.

School Name: Architecture and Design College – National University of San Juan, Argentina.

Adviser: Architect Guillermo VELASCO

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